Adam Carolla

On this day in 1964, Adam Carolla was born in Los Angeles, Calif. He briefly attended community college before deciding to pursue various professions, including working as a contractor, carpenter and boxing trainer. After working with the improv group The Groundings, Carolla decided to become a full-time comedian. Carolla co-hosted “The Man Show” (1999–2004) and “Crank Yankers” (2002–2007) with Jimmy Kimmel, whom Carolla met when teaching Kimmel to box. He also co-hosted the radio show “Loveline” (1999–2005). In 2009, Carolla began hosting “The Adam Carolla Show,” a free daily podcast on the ACE Broadcasting Network. “The Adam Carolla Show,” a talk show, became the most downloaded podcast in 2011 and holds the Guinness World Record for most downloaded podcast as of 2012. Carolla is also a published author. His comedic works include In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks (2011) and Rich Man, Poor Man (2012). He married Lynette Paradise in 2003 and has two children.

“I’m an atheist,” Carolla told Penn Jillette on Penn Radio on March 9, 2006. He told Jillette that he had never been religious and that the very idea of religion seemed bizarre to him. “If you were not born into that culture, it seems like the most outlandish thing in the world,” Carolla said. “Obviously, you could take any Christian and just have them born into fundamentalist Hasidism, and they would be walking around with the beard and the whole getup. If you weren’t indoctrinated into that early on, then it makes no sense.”

“If you weren’t indoctrinated into [religion], it sounds like a far-fetched fairy tale.”